There’s life before Resident Evil Requiem and life after. Critics and fans herald it as one of the best entries in Capcom’s legendary survival horror franchise, praising the gameplay and story that unites the paths of Grace Ashcroft and Leon S. Kennedy – and Fortress of Solitude agrees with this assessment. Returning as Leon is the man who has become synonymous with the character’s English dub, Nick Apostolides.
For Apostolides, this latest narrative arc allowed him to take Leon to places he wasn’t able to until this point as he delved into the character’s past. “It is exactly that, revisiting the past and facing the demons that he’s been fighting for three decades,” Apostolides said. “This was the moment to do that. In the canon of Leon, in all these past games and even the CGI films, you see that he’s been damaged. He’s haunted by the human loss that he’s bore witness to and he couldn’t do anything about it, so we’ve seen what that has done to him. But this is the first time we’re seeing him face that, reconcile that, and try to make it right now.”
Voiced and mo-capped by Angela Sant’Albano, Grace is a brand-new character introduced in Resident Evil Requiem. By the end, though, she becomes a pivotal character in the franchise’s history. As with any good story, though, it’s all about the journey and not just the final destination, as Grace and Leon embark on a quest for survival and answers together. As characters, Apostolides witnessed a lot of similarities between the two protagonists.
“I saw a lot of parallels between Grace and a young Leon,” he said. “I think I brought that up with the team a lot – that this is a very interesting dynamic. It’s not exactly mentor and mentee. It’s more like an evolving relationship where Leon is like, ‘Okay, I’ve got this young person here I’ve got to protect.’ And then he starts to see a lot of his younger self in Grace. I think that’s where he gives a lot of that trust, because he remembers what that was like. So he’s giving her a lot of agency, giving her a lot of trust, saying, ‘Okay, let’s do this together. You’re my partner in this. I don’t need to teach you everything.'”
Maybe Leon could have taught Grace how to use his famous roundhouse kick, though, especially to apply it to the ugly face of former Umbrella Corporation researcher Victor Gideon. He’s a different kind of villain compared to what’s typically seen in the Resident Evil franchise. Yes, there’s an ominous aura, but it doesn’t go away – even when he speaks in a calm tone. As it turns out, Apostolides felt this same sinister energy during the mo-cap performance. “I will say that the actor, Tony Byrne, is an incredible actor,” Apostolides said. “And I will say he’s one of two actors in my life that I’ve worked with that when I was working on these scenes with them, they made me so uncomfortable in real life.”
Speaking of being uncomfortable, one of the biggest talking points about Resident Evil Requiem is its two endings. Depending on the choice the player makes, Leon’s fate changes – he either lives or dies. As Apostolides revealed, he worked with the Capcom team for two years on the game, so he had all this in the back of his mind for quite a while.
“I just had a great sense of responsibility in the back of my head the entire process,” Apostoldies said. “We’d never seen this version of Leon at this age. And I gave a lot of thought about how I wanted to present him. In a lot of ways, it’s my version of the character that we’ve grown up with with the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes. It’s the same guy. And I’m like, ‘Okay, fast-forward 25 years. What does that look like? What does it feel like? What does it mean to him going back to face the past in Raccoon City?’ I just let that stew with me the whole time, and what we get is the final performance.”
Taking into account the two endings of Resident Evil Requiem, especially the one that appears very permanent for Leon, what does the future hold for the character? “I have no idea,” Apostolides said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
The success of Resident Evil Requiem is certain to reignite even more fanfare around the franchise and demand for more. Already, as it is, there have been countless adaptations for film and TV – Apostolides himself starred as Leon in Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness. While it’s well known that Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil film will chart its own course and largely ignore the characters from the video games, would Apostolides pick up the phone if the filmmaker called and asked him to reprise his role as Leon for the movie?
“I absolutely would,” Apostolides said. “I started on camera; that’s my jam. I’ve just worked in video games more than anything else in the past eight years or so, but I would love to. I would love to even have a small cameo role in a Resident Evil movie. I think that would be very, very fun.”
Resident Evil Requiem is out now on PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S.
